Many contemporary scientists have adopted the
philosophical position of naturalism as their personal view of the cosmos,
thereby excluding the truth of Christiantiy definitionally. However, the
impression is frequently given that science itself has provided the
justification for such a world view. The author argues that recognizing the
presence and influence of philosophical presuppositions is basic to
understanding how Christianity remains intellectually credible in the modern
world and compatible with modern science. He employs the work of Thomas Kuhn as
well as taking a look at the interaction between philosophical and scientific
thought since the inception of the modern era.

p.
242

When modern science emerged approximately 500 years ago, it
did so in harmony with a Christian view of what the world was ultimately like.
It was not problematic for the leading scientists of that day to believe that
God existed and that he had created the physical world they studied. In the
centuries that have since lapsed, a radical reversal has taken place. This has
had serious ramifications for the Christian believer for the last 200 years.
Currently, any discrepancy between the claims of science and the claims of
Christianity tends to be settled by default in favor of science. Science is
fact. Christianity is faith. And if science is always fact, then Christianity,
at many of its central points, is also false. Or so it seems to many.

Critics of Christianity put forth many charges that share the
common theme of the conflict between some areas of modern science and
traditional Christian faith. "Hasn't science explained the things that used
to be explained by invoking God?" "Since we now know how the universe
works through modern science, isn't it true that there is no room left in the
picture for God?" "Even if there is a God, hasn't science proven that
miracles are not possible?" Assertions like these are all too familiar. It
is commonly believed that traditional faith in God (if it is even allowed that
he exists) is incompatible with the findings of modern science. For the
Christian to hang onto his or her faith, then, supposedly requires an act of
"intellectual schizophrenia."

How does the Christian who wants to retain both his faith and
his intellectual integrity respond? Is it even possible? Can the theist escape
the crushing weight of the proclamations of modern science? Christian
philosopher and apologist J.P. Moreland states:

Undoubtedly the most important influence shaping
the modern world is science ... If the church is to speak to the modern world
and interact with it responsibly, it must interact with modern
science.1

p.
243

This paper will be limited to working toward taking an
initial, yet fundamental, step in the direction of understanding the mutually
exclusive truth claims of science and Christianity. That step involves an
analysis of the relationship between science and philosophy. More specifically,
it is my contention that the philosophical presuppositions that are embraced by
modern science are the source of many (though not all) of science's
irreconcilable differences with Christianity. I will seek to make the following
points:

1. Science can never be completely separated from,
but is inextricably interdependent upon, philosophical assumptions.

2. Modern science is currently dedicated to the
particular philosophical world view of naturalism.

3. Naturalism constrains and restricts the
scientist's thinking. It can dramatically affect the way scientists perceive and
interpret data.

I will then briefly illustrate, before
concluding, how these points might be applied to some of the actual areas of
conflict.

The Role of Philosophical Presuppositions

The most important key to understanding the conflict between
some areas of modern science and Christianity is to be found in the sphere of
philosophical presuppositions. When seen in their proper light, presuppositions
profoundly account for a great deal of that conflict. However, many scientists
mistakenly deny that science must rely upon anything in order to function, even
philosophy. The average scientist seems to think that science can operate in an
objective box, totally self-contained and untainted by elements of subjectivity
that hamper other disciplines.

But this is simply not the case. Walter M. Pitch is one
scientist who sees this. He not only sees this necessary dependence of science,
but calls upon his colleagues to acknowledge it, too. Writing in Evolution
magazine, he says:

By a metaphysical construct I mean any unproved or
unprovable assumption that we all make and tend to take for granted. One example
is the doctrine of uniformitarianism that asserts that the laws of nature, such
as gravity and thermodynamics, have always been true in the past and will always
be true in the future. It is the belief in that doctrine that permits scientists
to demand repeatability in experiments. I like the word doctrine in this case
because it makes clear that matters of faith are not restricted to creationists
and that in the intellectual struggle for citizen enlightenment we need to be
very clear just where the fundamental differences between science and theology
lie. It is not, as many scientists would like to believe, in the absence of
metaphysical underpinnings in science.2

Significantly, he declares that we must recognize a line of
distinction between science and theology (or philosophy) that isn't often seen
by the scientific community. That line involves the presence of
"metaphysical underpinnings" in all that scientists do. This idea can
be illustrated as follows in the diagram below. Science never operates in a box.
It always rests upon one philosophical foundation or another.

Science

Presuppositions

The import of this observation, as we will shortly see, would
be hard to over-emphasize. When the line of distinction between science and
philosophy, between fact and faith, goes unnoticed, it becomes much easier for a
theory to be defended sincerely yet erroneously as fact. If a pivotal
presupposition turns out to be false, any theory or theories which rest upon
that presupposition will also be affected.

p. 244

The Prevailing Philosophy: Naturalism

But if science must rely upon philosophical assumptions, what
are they? They have been different at different times. Today, overwhelmingly,
the philosophical metaphysic subscribed to by the scientific establishment is
that of naturalism. Christian thinker Francis Schaeffer explains:

What we have to realize is that early modern
science was started by those who lived in the consensus and setting of
Christianity.... The early scientists believed in the uniformity of natural
causes. What they did not believe in was the uniformity of natural causes in
a closed system. That little phrase makes all the difference in the world.
It makes the difference between natural science and a science that is rooted in
naturalistic philosophy. It makes all the difference between what I would call
modern science and what I would call modern modern science. It is important to
notice that this is not a failing of science as science, but rather that the
uniformity of natural causes in a closed system has become the dominant
philosophy among scientists.... This shift did not come because of newly
discovered facts, but because of a shift in their presuppositions ó a shift to
the world view of materialism or naturalism.3

We can, therefore, amend our previous diagram from its
generic formulation to describe the condition of "modern modern"
science as follows:

Science

Naturalism

But what exactly is naturalism? Dr. Schaeffer hinted at it,
but let us look more closely. There is an element of naturalism that says nature
cannot be influenced by any outside force. Webster's dictionary highlights this
element by defining naturalism this way:

A theory denying that an event or object has a
supernatural significance; specifically: the doctrine that scientific laws are
adequate to account for all phenomena.4

Another, and I believe more helpful, explanation of
naturalism is given by philosopher Ronald H. Nash. His presentation and summary
makes the ramifications of naturalism easier to see.

The touchstone proposition or basic presupposition
of naturalism states: "Nothing exists outside the material, mechanical
(that is, nonpurposeful), natural order." ... For a naturalist, the
universe is analogous to a box. Everything that happens inside the box (the
natural order) is caused by or is explicable in terms of other things that exist
within the box. Nothing (including God) exists outside the box; therefore,
nothing outside the box we call the universe or nature can have any causal
effect within the box.5

Nash summarizes the beliefs that flow from a consistent
philosophy of naturalism as follows:

The rival systems are helpfully illustrated by Nash in the
following way.8

Nothing

The
Natural Order

(Naturalism)

A "Kuhnian" Hermeneutic

The work of Thomas S. Kuhn in his book, The Structure of
Scientific Revolutions, will be helpful at this time in dissecting the issue
of how philosophy (i.e., presuppositions) and science interrelate. Several
important points in his thought dovetail very well with my allegation that
presuppositions play a fundamental role in sorting out the conflicts between
Christianity and some areas of modern science. By mentally inserting naturalism
into Kuhn's model, we can apply his teachings to the controversy between some
areas of science and Christianity.

p.
245

The focus of Kuhn's book is the question of how science
develops or progresses through time. It is ordinarily assumed that science
progresses via
"development-by-accumulation."9
In other
words, science is believed to progress slowly and smoothly by adding one new
discovery upon former discoveries in a unified, coherent stream. Kuhn says that
this isn't so. Instead, he argues, it progresses that way for a while, but
invariably will need to radically shift gears and head in a new direction under
what he terms a new "paradigm." A paradigm, for many practical
purposes, has synonymous parallels to the way I have been using the term
"presupposition." When a shift in paradigms takes place, it can alter
the assumptions, rules, expectations, and interpretations of scientists at a
fundamental level as they study the world.

What Is a Paradigm?

Basic to Kuhn's presentation are several specific terms. By
"paradigm," mentioned earlier, Kuhn refers to a model for actual
scientific practice which includes law, theory, application, and
instrumentation, among other things. It is within the guidelines of a given
paradigm that particular traditions of scientific research
operate.10 There is also an element within every
paradigm that Kuhn says is "arbitrary." When this element is seen in
past periods of science, it is called "myth." However, it is no doubt
present within contemporary paradigms without being recognized as mythical or
erroneous. In his words:

The more carefully [historians of science] study,
say, Aristotelian dynamics, phlogistic chemistry, or caloric thermodynamics, the
more certain they feel that those once current views of nature were, as a whole,
neither less scientific nor more the product of human idiosyncrasy than those
current today. If these out-of-date beliefs are to be called myths, then myths
can be produced by the same sorts of methods and held for the same sorts of
reasons that now lead to scientific knowledge. If, on the other hand, they are
to be called science, then science has included bodies of belief quite
incompatible with the ones we hold today.... Out-of-date theories are not in
principle unscientific because they have been
discarded.11

It is this arbitrary element of a paradigm that most closely
resembles philosophical presuppositions.

What Is "Normal Science"?

Another basic term which Kuhn uses is "normal
science," by which he means:

...research firmly based upon one or more past
scientific achievements, achievements that some particular scientific community
acknowledges for a time as supplying the foundation for its further
practice.12

One of the most well known examples Kuhn uses throughout his
book is the switch that took place as a result of Nicholas Copernicus. Until
Copernicus's day, the Ptolemaic conception of the universe, in which the earth
was believed to be the physical center, reigned supreme. (The Ptolemaic view is
an example of what we have seen as "myth" contained in former periods
as well as an example of what is meant by "paradigm.") But when the
Copernican revolution was finalized by Galileo's confirmation, the science of
astronomy was never the same.

"Normal science," in this example, is the exploring
and the discovering that took place after the paradigm shift of the Copernican
revolution. With the new paradigm in place, research was conducted and
discoveries made, but all within the new and guiding view developed by
Copernicus and Galileo. Scientists then knew that the earth revolved around the
sun and that the stars did not revolve around the earth or the sun, but there
was still a tremendous amount they did not know. The research that followed was
normal science. For this reason, Kuhn likens normal science to puzzle-solving.
Normal science seeks to answer unsolved questions, but only within the limits
of the paradigm.13

Science Is Committed to Naturalism

Defined this way, it is easy to understand why Kuhn says that
a "commitment" to a paradigm is a pre-requisite for normal science.
There can be scientific research without paradigms, but not within a mature
field.14 And in speaking of the arbitrary element,
he says:

Normal science, the activity in which most
scientists inevitably spend almost all their time, is predicated on the
assumption that the scientific community knows what the world is
like.15

This is what I have claimed in saying that science does not
operate in objective factual isolation, but rests upon certain assumptions.
Notice also the clear metaphysical nature of those assumptions.

What effect does this "commitment" of science to an
unproven and unprovable philosophical position have?

p. 246

Kuhn continues:

Much of the success of the enterprise [of science]
derives from the community's willingness to defend that assumption, if necessary
at considerable cost. Normal science, for example, often suppresses fundamental
novelties because they are necessarily subversive of its basic
commitments.16

Further illustrating the distinction between fact and
philosophy are his comments concerning the early stages of development within a
particular field of science.

If [an initial paradigm] is not already implicit
in the collection of factsóin which case more than
"mere facts" are at handóit must be externally
supplied, perhaps by a current metaphysic, by another science, or by personal
and historical accident.17

So, normal science operates solely within the confines of the
arbitrary metaphysical parameters included in its adopted paradigm. Normal
science is also committed to that paradigm. We could move from Kuhn's generic
statement to say that some areas of today's normal science are committed to a
belief that ultimate reality is accurately represented by the naturalistic
model.

We are now in a better position to appreciate some of the
ramifications of the presuppositions that undergird science. For the one who
sees that science rests upon a foundation of naturalism, and who objects to the
naturalistic pronouncements of science, the following observation by Kuhn holds
significant explanatory force.

Closely examined, whether historically or in the
contemporary laboratory, [normal science] seems an attempt to force nature into
the preformed and relatively inflexible box that the paradigm supplies. No part
of the aim of normal science is to call forth new sorts of phenomena; indeed
those that will not fit the box are often not seen at all. Nor do scientists
normally aim to invent new theories, and they are often intolerant of those
invented by others.18

...many of the best scientists work their whole
lives
without ever seriously questioning the truth of the
presuppositions their
work rests upon.

Also suggestive is that the solving of puzzles via normal
science occupies "even the very best
scientists"19 and that "many of the
greatest scientific minds have devoted all of their professional attention
to" this sort of work.20 In other words, many
of the best scientists work their whole lives without ever seriously questioning
the truth of the presuppositions their work rests upon. This must certainly be
part of the reason why so many scientists insist dogmatically upon the truth of
a naturalistic worldview while that worldview remains nothing more than a
philosophical position outside the reach of scientific verification or
falsification.

But if paradigms are held on to so tenaciously by scientists,
why, in the past, have they given them up over time? Isn't the allegation of
dogmatism on the part of scientists contradicted by the historical fact that
paradigms have been forsaken for newer, more helpful ones? The answer is an
unequivocal No, and the explanation is found in another principal element in
Kuhn's thesis.

Normal science is unable to solve some of its
most significant puzzles.

Remember that the overriding focus of Kuhn's book is to take
issue with the conventional idea that science progresses slowly, gradually and
cumulatively. Kuhn contends, instead, that science advances cumulatively only
within normal science.21 Eventually, however,
whether sooner or later, anomalies arise. Normal science is unable to solve some
of its most significant puzzles. When these anomalies remain problematic and
defy resolution long enough, and when those problems are fundamental to the
truth of the paradigm, they begin to transform the scientific community to a
state that can be accurately described as one of crisis.

Crises can be resolved in one of three ways. In the first
scenario, normal science ends up being able, at long last, to solve the puzzle.
Second, the problem is set aside for future generations with the assumption that
they will be better prepared to resolve the issue. Third, a new paradigm emerges
to replace the old.22

There is a reason why Kuhn treats resolution through normal
science as something completely different than resolution through a new
paradigm. If the old paradigm were slightly altered, this would merely be the
refining work included in the operations of normal science. However, what takes
place is more than slight modification to the old paradigm.

p.
247

The transition from a paradigm in crisis to a new
one from which a new tradition of normal science can emerge is far from a
cumulative process, one achieved by an articulation or extension of the old
paradigm. Rather it is a reconstruction of the field from new fundamentals, a
reconstruction that changes some of the field's most elementary theoretical
generalizations as well as many of its paradigm methods and
applications.23

It is precisely this type of "shift of professional
commitments" which he describes as a "scientific
revolution."24 When a paradigm shift occurs,
the paradigmatic components that are left behind come to be known by later
scientists as the myths and errors we discussed earlier.

So these paradigms, or commitments, are not left behind
easily. They are clung to dogmatically. The anomaly or anomalies which bring
about crisis do so only after the scientific community has wrestled with them
long and hard enough to bloody their heads, as it were, against an impenetrable
wall. Then, and only then, are they willing and able to let go of the former
paradigm, and even then not until a more acceptable replacement has been
furnished.25

It is also revealing to observe that periods of crisis
produce a greater level of humility within the scientific community with respect
to the certainty of their cherished paradigmatic presuppositions. The transition
to crisis is also the transition from normal to extraordinary
science.26 It is during these periods that the
heaviest concentration of speculative theories (theories that go beyond the
paradigm) are produced and proposed.27

Most significantly:

It is, I think, particularly in periods of
acknowledged crisis that scientists have turned to philosophical analysis as a
device for unlocking the riddles of their field. Scientists have not generally
needed or wanted to be philosophers. Indeed, normal science usually holds
creative philosophy at arm's length, and probably for good
reasons.28

We see once again that philosophy is inextricably related to
science. But unless a crisis forces them to think differently, many scientists
fail (or refuse) to realize that fact.

The Power of a Paradigm

Let us turn our attention now to what is possibly the most
significant aspect of this analysis. Is it possible that this
"commitment" to a paradigm, this firm belief in its legitimacy,
including the unscientific metaphysical elements it includes, can affect the
perception of the scientist as he makes observations of the physical world?
Specifically, can an unreserved belief in naturalism exert a blinding effect
upon a scientist as he interprets the physical world he observes? Can it drive
him forcefully to the conviction that there is no God, or if there is, that he
has no on-going affiliation to the operating of the physical world and its laws?

Can an unreserved belief in naturalism exert a
blinding effect
upon a scientist as he interprets the physical world he
observes?

Consider the following experiments taken from what Kuhn says
is only a sampling of a "rich body of psychological literature":

An experimental subject who puts on goggles fitted
with inverting lenses initially sees the entire world upside down. At the start
his perceptual apparatus functions as it had been trained to function in the
absence of the goggles, and the result is extreme disorientation, an acute
personal crisis. But after the subject has begun to learn to deal with his new
world, his entire visual field flips over, usually after an intervening period
in which vision is simply confused. Thereafter, objects are again seen as they
had been before the goggles were put on.... Literally as well as metaphorically,
the man accustomed to inverting lenses has undergone a revolutionary
transformation of vision.29

I find it quite fascinating that anyone could adjust to such
a disorienting influence as these goggles. And yet, the experiment proves that
it is done. It was a problem of perception, not vision. It wasn't a case where
the subjects could not see the true world. It was a problem of their being able
to interpret properly what they saw.

In another experiment, subjects were asked:

to identify on short and controlled exposure a
series of playing cards. Many of the cards were normal, but some were made
anomalous, e.g., a red six of spades and a black four of hearts.... After each
exposure the subject was asked what he had seen ... For the normal cards these
identifications were usually correct, but the anomalous cards were almost always
identified, without apparent hesitation or puzzlement, as normal. The black four
of hearts might, for example, be identified as the four of either spades or
hearts. Without any awareness of trouble, it was immediately fitted to one of
the conceptual categories prepared by prior
experience.30

p.
248

It was only after continued exposure that most subjects began
to see the problem cards and a few of them were never able to figure out exactly
what was wrong.31

What does this tell us? These experiments show that
"what a man sees depends both upon what he looks at and also upon what his
previous visual-conceptual experience has taught him to
see."32 Kuhn draws a direct parallel to the
way a paradigm influences the views of scientists, not in their perception of
the physical world, but in their conceptual interpretations of those
observations.33

Is it really so ludicrous to suggest that naturalism can
blind scientists to equally plausible interpretations of the brute facts of
science? I think not. When asked to conceive of the existence of God, the
scientist who is controlled by a naturalistic worldview feels a conceptual
disorientation similar to the experimental subject who was given the special
goggles. He just can't conceive of it. On top of that, however, is the fact that
he's convinced his opinion is rooted in a "scientific" and factual
view of the universe while in reality it is the fruit of his philosophical
beliefs.

"Systematic Deception"

There is yet one more dimension to the work of Kuhn that we
need to explore. Why is it that a much larger percentage of the scientific world
seems to embrace naturalism than that which is found in the rest of the
population? Doesn't this suggest that there is something that scientific
research reveals about the nature of the world that drives many of its
practitioners to accept naturalism as true? How can this be explained away?

In reply, the real reason why naturalism is the prevailing
metaphysic of the scientific sub-culture is to be found, not in the practice of
science, but in the preparation for a career in science. Once again, while
making a different point altogether, Kuhn helps to establish one of my own. He
is addressing the reason why so many, including scientists, think that science
has progressed solely through accumulation and why the revolutions he argues for
are not so readily seen. His explanation is riveting.

Textbooks of science together with both the
popularizations and the philosophical works modeled on them ... All three record
the stable outcome of past revolutions and thus display the bases of the current
normal-scientific tradition. To fulfill their function they need not provide
authentic information about the way in which those bases were first recognized
and then embraced by the profession. In the case of textbooks, at least, there
are good reasons why, in these matters, they should be systematically
misleading.34

... the real reason why naturalism is the
prevailing metaphysic
of the scientific sub-culture is to be found, not in the
practice of science,
but in the preparation for a career in science.

In other words, the reason why scientists don't realize how
radical things have deviated from time to time as a result of paradigm shifts is
because it is not the purpose of the text to explain it. The text aims simply to
bring the students up-to-date as quickly as possible with everything relevant
for them to continue the quest for knowledge under today's paradigm. As a
result, the true nature of development through revolution is made
"invisible."

He adds:

For reasons that are both obvious and highly
functional, science textbooks ... refer only to that part of the work of past
scientists that can easily be viewed as contributions to the statement and
solution of the texts' paradigm problems.... The depreciation of historical fact
is deeply, and probably functionally, ingrained in the ideology of the
scientific profession, the same profession that places the highest of all values
upon details of other sorts.35

Elsewhere, he explains how the rigorous and rigid educational
process comes "to exert a deep hold on the scientific
mind."36

But, you may object, "That's the ingraining of a false
view of scientific progression. You've gone beyond that to imply an
indoctrination of naturalism to the point that it `blinds' the scientist's
judgement. You're stretching that point for more than it's worth." Let's
consider one more piece of illuminating testimony. In explaining how changes in
paradigms affect the way that scientists in different periods interpret the same
phenomena in different ways, Kuhn writes:

Looking at a contour map, the student sees lines
on paper, the cartographer a picture of a terrain. Looking at a bubble-chamber
photograph, the student sees confused and broken lines, the physicist a record
of familiar subnuclear events. Only after a number of such transformations of
vision does the student become an inhabitant of the scientist's world, seeing
what the scientist sees and responding as the scientist does. The world that the
student then enters is not, however, fixed once and for all by the nature of the
environment, on the one hand, and the science, on the other. Rather, it is
determined jointly by the environment and the particular normal-scientific
tradition that the student has been trained to
pursue.37

p.
249

We can see from this that what takes place in the training of
scientists is a very thorough conditioning process ó a process that conditions
them to see and interpret the data through the contemporary paradigm. And the
over-arching metaphysical aspect of today's paradigm is hands down that of
naturalism. It is impossible to conceive that that conditioning process does not
result in a tremendous amount of absorption of naturalistic thinking by the
scientists in training. This would be especially so for those students who are
not consciously aware of the role of presuppositions as they receive their
training. But even for those who are, and who seek to exercise discernment as
they study, I can't imagine that the force of this presupposition upon their
thinking can be easily avoided.

Philosophy as a Molder of Science

It will be helpful at this juncture to briefly sketch the
role of the developments in the world of philosophy in shaping the
presuppositional foundations of scientists. This will reinforce the contentions
offered so far as well as provide fresh insights. It has been mentioned that in
the early days of modern science, theism and scientific thought co-existed
harmoniously. However, it did not remain so for very long. The turning point can
be located generally around the middle of the seventeenth
century.38 Historian of science, Sir William
Dampier, writes:

Descartes [1596-1650], who was accused by his
opponents of having devised so effective a cosmic mechanism that it left no room
for Providential control, held that the mathematical laws of nature had been
established by God.39

So we see that with Descartes an important, though
unintended, step was taken toward a mechanical or naturalistic view of the
universe. But it is important to see that this was not a necessary ramification
of his thought. A rigidly ordered universe did not mean there was no God to
create it or maintain it.

Soon afterward came the monumental work of Isaac Newton
(1642-1727). With Newton came a "change in mental outlook" in the
world of science.40 This change in outlook is
explained by Dampier:

Newton's work was assailed ... because he offered
no explanation of the ultimate cause of gravitational attraction. Newton was the
first to see clearly that an attempt at an explanation, if necessary or possible
at all, comes at a later stage ... It was not necessary to know the cause of the
attraction; Newton regarded that as a secondary and independent problem, as yet
only in the stage suitable for speculation.... It is a testimony to the
wisdom of Newton's true scientific spirit of caution that, since his day, in
spite of many attempts, no satisfactory mechanical explanation of gravitational
attraction has been given...41

...the important distinction we have noted
between
the observations of science and the metaphysical interpretation
of what
is observed ... is the difference between fact and faith

Newton distinguished between what was observed in nature and
why it behaved the way it did. This is the important distinction we have noted
between the observations of science and the metaphysical interpretation of what
is observed. It is the difference between fact and faith. The former is
knowledge, the latter is speculation. Dampier reminds us that, even today,
explanations for why the laws of nature behave the way they do is not a matter
that has been established by science. In other words, he is helping us to keep
clear that important line of demarcation between fact and philosophy.

But if Newton made the proper distinction between facts and
speculation, how is it that we don't clearly see that distinction today? The
explanation is found in two phases. Science first influenced philosophy. Then
philosophy influenced science. More specifically, philosophy erroneously
interpreted the Newtonian method concerning its metaphysical implications. Then,
science later adopted (without necessary scientific justification), the new
philosophical outlook.

p. 250

In explaining why Newton made the distinction he did, Dampier
writes:

It was not that he had no philosophical or
theological interests: quite the contrary. He was a philosopher and a deeply
religious man, but he regarded these subjects as a vision to be seen from the
topmost pinnacles of human knowledge, and not as the foundation on which it must
be built: the end and not the beginning of science ... All that Newton thought
could fairly be written in such a work on the metaphysical import of his
physical discoveries [is contained in seven pages at the end of his book
Principia]. It is expressed in the natural theological language of the time.
Its sense is that of the argument from design. "This most beautiful System
of the Sun, Planets and Comets," he wrote, "could only proceed from
the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful
Being..."42

Clearly, Newton did not understand the meticulous natural
order of the universe to mean that God was not immanently involved in
it.43 But those who came after him believed that
it did. Dampier continues:

It must be allowed that, at a later date, Newton's
science was taken by others as the basis of a mechanical philosophy, but that
was not the fault of Newton or his friends. They did their best, in the
theological language which was natural to them, to make clear their belief that
Newtonian dynamics did not controvert, rather indeed strengthened, a spiritual
view of reality ... To them theism was fundamental and unquestioned, and they
had no fear in accepting fully and entirely the new science ... The "most
beautiful System of the Sun, Planets and Comets," which to Newton could
only proceed from a beneficent Creator, was used in the eighteenth century as
the basis for a mechanical philosophy, and replaced the atomism of the ancients
as the starting point of an atheistic materialism [i.e.,
naturalism].44

Theism to Deism to Atheism

Before Newton, and contemporaneous to both Galileo and
Descartes, was the birth of deism.45 Deism took
the philosophical baton from theism and handed it to naturalism in the western
world. Deism was not absolutely necessary for the transition from theism to
naturalism to take place, but it no doubt accommodated that transition by making
it smoother and by stretching it over a longer period of time.

But what exactly is deism? In contrast to theism, Norman
Geisler describes deism in this manner:

Theism is the belief that there is a God both
beyond and within the world, a Creator and Sustainer who sovereignly controls
the world and supernaturally intervenes in it. Deism holds with theism that God
created the world but denies his supernatural intervention in it on the grounds
that the world operates by natural and self-sustaining laws of the Creator. In
short, God is beyond the world but he is not active in the world in a
supernatural way.46

By referring again to Nash's diagrams which depicted theism
and naturalism, and by introducing a third diagram of our own, we can see how
deism served as a kind of stepping stone between theism and naturalism.

God

The Natural Order

(Deism)

From this we can see that deism agrees with theism that there
is a God who created the box. However, deism agrees with naturalism that nothing
can interfere with the workings of the box, including the God deists believe
created the box. Rather than the huge step from theism to the atheistic outlook
of naturalism, deism allows for two shorter steps. First, deism retains God's
existence while maintaining that he no longer interacts with his creation. From
there, atheistic naturalism eliminates the existence of God altogether.
Significantly, since this second step involves no difference in how people
believe the world functions in relation to God, only a difference in what is
believed to be beyond the world, the step to atheism was made notably more
palatable to a culture which had previously been steeped in a theistic view of
the world.

As time went on, a more and more rigid naturalism took shape
within the logic of deism.47 This found one of its
most celebrated expressions in the classic essay by Hume where he attacked the
probability of miracles.48

p.
251

Dampier summarizes the waning of deism and the waxing of
naturalism as follows:

Newton and his immediate disciples used the new
dynamical science to demonstrate the wisdom and goodness of an all-powerful
Creator. In Locke's philosophy this tendency was less vigorous, and it was ruled
out altogether in Hume's separation of reason and faith ... The astonishing
success of the Newtonian theory in explaining the mechanism of the heavens led
to an overestimate of the power of mechanical conceptions to give an ultimate
account of the whole Universe.49

While all this was taking place, he writes:

[A] more popular current of thought was setting
strongly in the direction of materialism, a word first used in the eighteenth
century.... Materialism [naturalism] takes the phenomenal world as real, naively
and dogmatically. Its attempt to explain consciousness, like those made by other
philosophers, is an obvious failure, for how can the motion of senseless
particles produce consciousness...50

With a final reference to Dampier we can see both the
attraction that naturalism holds for the scientific community as well as the
inherent risk of naturalism being esteemed more highly than science can justify.
He says:

For rough, everyday use, it has its advantages,
indeed it is necessary for each detail of science, but there is always the
danger that it should be taken as the necessary philosophy of science as a
whole, and, as a philosophy, gain the prestige which the success of detailed
science inevitably gives.51

With this statement we come back to where we started. Science
operates on naturalistic presuppositions. But many, including scientists, are
not aware of the line of demarcation between the true discoveries of science and
the assumed truth of naturalism. And with the blurring of that line comes the
misguided tribute to naturalism as though it were in the same category as, say,
the discovery of the polio vaccine. If there is to be any legitimate
harmonization in the modern debate between science and theology, we need to
understand and be aware of the difference between what is fact, what is faith
and what is philosophy.

The Proposal Applied

Before we conclude, it will be beneficial to briefly
demonstrate how this proposal might be applied to an actual instance of
disagreement between science and theology. The most well-known and visible
debate is undoubtedly that between naturalistic evolution and the Biblical
account of man's creation by the direct work of God. How might the suggestion of
philosophical presuppositions be applied to this particular controversy?

An initial observation we could make is that history plainly
records that Darwin's theory of evolution was not a discovery made from
observing nature, but a preconceived and prevalent idea (philosophy?) brought to
his observations of nature. It is believed by some scientists that the fossil
record supplies virtually incontrovertible evidence for the truth of the theory
of evolution.52 However, not only was this not
true in Darwin's time, as he himself admits in his The Origin of Species,53
but it is not true today after the evidence has been hard sought for over a
hundred years by an army of paleontologists. Dr. David Raup, one of the world's
most respected paleontologists explains:

Darwin predicted that the fossil record should
show a reasonably smooth continuum of ancestor-descendent pairs with a
satisfactory number of intermediaries between major groups. Darwin even went so
far as to say that if this were not found in the fossil record, his general
theory of evolution would be in serious jeopardy. Such smooth transitions were
not found in Darwin's time, and he explained this in part on the basis of an
incomplete geologic record and in part on the lack of study of that record. We
are now more than a hundred years after Darwin and the situation is little
changed. Since Darwin a tremendous expansion of paleontological knowledge has
taken place, and we know much more about the fossil record than was known in his
time, but the basic situation is not much different. We actually may have fewer
examples of smooth transitions than we had in Darwin's time, because some of the
old examples have turned out to be invalid when studied in more detail. To be
sure, some new intermediate or transitional forms have been found, particularly
among land vertebrates. But if Darwin were writing today, he would still have to
cite a disturbing lack of missing links or transitional forms between major
groups of organisms.54

Until the line of separation between facts and
philosophy
is candidly acknowledged and carefully considered,
there can be no
meaningful harmonization
of Christian faith with modern science.

What does all this tell us? We can see that the philosophy of
naturalism had been adopted by some of the scientific community before Darwin
came along. It was the framework, "paradigm," in which his own
thinking operated. Further, the philosophy was applied to observations of nature
as opposed to nature determining the philosophy. The most important body of
evidence pointed to by science for the substantiation of evolution is the fossil
record. And yet, instead of being unequivocal and conclusive, the evidence
provided by the fossil record remains a controversial issue even among
non-theistic, evolutionary paleontologists.

p.
252

Many of these scientists, no longer able to hold to a
traditional Darwinian view of slow, continuous evolution, have formulated a new
theory known as punctuated equilibrium. This version involves an amendment to
the traditional view at a fundamental level. It sees evolution taking place in
momentous growth spurts involving relatively short periods of time with no
change thereafter for long periods until another sudden surge takes place. This
modification has been seen by many (on different sides of the debate) as a
significant move toward a view of the fossil record that resembles what one
might expect to find based on a view that espouses creation.

It will probably be decades, if not longer, before a
consensus is reached concerning the fossil record. But assuming that the
traditional evolutionary view will continue to lose supporters, even among those
who would like to see it established, the parallels between some of Kuhn's
observations and the actual developments in this area of science over the last
hundred years are rather interesting. And in light of these developments, is the
theist really without justification when he or she says that the traditional
evolutionist, when it comes to the fossil record, may be "forcing nature
into the preformed and relatively inflexible box that" naturalism has
supplied? It would seem not.

This example is necessarily an extremely superficial
examination of the larger conflict between some areas of science and theology.
Nevertheless, it enables us to see at least one application of what has been set
forth in this paper. Its application would seem even more reasonable when
considered against the thinking of contemporary social sciences. By starting out
with naturalistic assumptions (i.e., there is no God and everything can be
explained according to natural causes), these disciplines have systematically
rewritten major fields of study. The formulation of comparative religion by
anthropologists is one prime example. And the list could go on.

Admittedly, the disagreements between scientists and
traditional Christian theologians cannot be fully resolved solely by an appeal
to presuppositional biases. Nevertheless, the significance that those biases
play has, more often than not, been disregarded by even well-meaning scientists
and laymen alike. Until the line of separation between facts and philosophy is
candidly acknowledged and carefully considered, there can be no meaningful
harmonization of Christian faith with modern science. Philosophical
presuppositions are a first step, but a fundamental one.